Russia orders the Wagner Group to relinquish control of its mercenaries

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered this Sunday that every detachment of volunteers, including mercenaries of Wagner’s group, must be integrated into the Russian army and therefore sign portfolio contracts to legalize their situation. The official’s order states that “the documents must be signed before July 1, which will give the units the necessary legal status, create common approaches to organizing comprehensive support and fulfilling their tasks.”

However, the mercenary head of Wagner’s group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Sunday that he did his people won’t sign “never”. “Wagner is absolutely and completely subordinated to the interests of the Russian Federation and directly to the Supreme Commander,” wrote Prigozhin on Telegram, President Vladimir Putin. “Most military units are not as efficient as the Wagners, and this is because the chief of defense is not capable of managing the units normally,” claims Prigozhin.

In the face of information released by Kiev about advances in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense denies that such an offensive is successful and ensures that the attacks are repelled. “During the last 24 hours, Kiev’s armed forces have made unsuccessful attempts to advance in the southern directions of Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Donetsk,” Russian military spokesman Igor Konashenkov said yesterday. According to his report, Russian troops with the support of aviation “defeated” several Ukrainian brigades in the territory of the cities of Novodonjeckoja, Neskuchnoja, Storoževoja and in the state farm Oktobar of the Donetsk People’s Republic. “In the direction of Zaporozhye, three enemy attacks from the direction of the settlements of Novodanilovka, Mala Tokmacka and Novopokrovka were repelled in one day by the action of the defense units, airstrikes and artillery fire of the Russian Vostok group,” said Konashenkov, adding that ” the column of armored vehicles of the 128th mountain-assault brigade of Ukrainian troops, which was advancing to the south, was also defeated”.

The report also asserts that forces are facing Ukrainian offensives in the Marinka and Avdivka areas, both in the Donetsk region, where it reported “eight rejected attacks” and “without breaching our defences”. According to Konashenkov, there were also attacks in the area of ​​Kupyansk, in the Kharkiv region, which confirmed that the Ukrainian army is carrying out a counterattack on a wide front. Top honors Not long after Konashenko’s performance, his boss, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, handed out medals to soldiers who distinguished themselves during the current special military operation – as the Russian authorities defined the invasion of Ukraine. Information on Russian public television shows Shoigu awarding the Hero of Russia gold star, the country’s highest military honor, to soldiers who said they shot down German Leopard tanks and Western vehicles.

Shoigu also reported yesterday that “Ukrainian troops unsuccessfully tried to attack Call the ship which were patrolling the waters of the Black Sea,” according to the military note, which states that they were used against the Russian ship “six drones” during the night when he was “fulfilling the mission of guaranteeing the security of the Turkish gas pipelines TurkStream and Blue Stream, in the southeastern area of ​​the Black Sea”, the infrastructure that supplies Russian gas to Turkey.

Returning once again to the possibility of a negotiation process with Ukraine to end the war, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin that “Now there is no basis, not even a weak one, for any dialogue” with Kiev. He blamed the Ukrainian authorities for a lack of will in this regard, suggesting that there was a willingness on Moscow’s part. The main stumbling block remains Russia’s efforts to keep the occupied Ukrainian territories under its sovereignty, which Kiev considers completely unacceptable.